Life Unfolding: How the Human Body Creates Itself - Jamie A. Davies

  "From egg to adult body, Life Unfolding by Jamie Davies is a demanding but wonder-filled account of the simple interactions that create complex structures." -- Claire Ainsworth,New Scientest

"Davies offers a detailed ride through the mind-boggling number of simultaneous self-organizing activities of growth." - Publishers Weekly

Climbing Mount Improbable - Richard Dawkins

A brilliant book celebrating improbability as the engine that drives life, by the acclaimed author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker.

The human eye is so complex and works so precisely that surely, one might believe, its current shape and function must be the product of design. How could such an intricate object have come about by chance? Tackling this subject—in writing that the New York Times called "a masterpiece"—Richard Dawkins builds a carefully reasoned and lovingly illustrated argument for evolutionary adaptation as the mechanism for life on earth.

KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

 Deeply researched, groundbreaking history. (Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker)

The first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps

Natural Born Heroes - Christopher Mcdougall

The best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere.

After running an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, Christopher McDougall finds his next great adventure on the razor-sharp mountains of Crete, where a band of Resistance fighters in World War II plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. How did a penniless artist, a young shepherd, and a playboy poet believe they could carry out such a remarkable feat of strength and endurance, smuggling the general past thousands of Nazi pursuers, with little more than their own wits and courage to guide them?

Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire by Caroline Finkel

 

The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in world history. Its reach extended to three continents and it survived for more than six centuries, but its history is too often colored by the memory of its bloody final throes on the battlefields of World War I. In this magisterial work-the first definitive account written for the general reader-renowned scholar and journalist Caroline Finkel lucidly recounts the epic story of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in the thirteenth century through its destruction in the twentieth.

Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos - Peter M. Hoffmann

The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells—assemblies of otherwise “dead” molecules—come to life, and together constitute a living being?

The Road to Character by David Brooks

“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian (U.K.)

“I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it.”—David Brooks
 

The Rise of Hitler: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives - Trevor Sailsbury

 

American Warlord: A True Story Hardcover – Deckle Edge

Chucky Taylor is the American son of the infamous African dictator Charles Taylor. Raised by his mother in the Florida suburbs, at the age of 17 he followed his father to Liberia, where he ended up leading a murderous militia. Chucky is now in a federal penitentiary, the only American ever convicted of torture.
This shocking and essential work of reportage tells his tragic and terrifying story for the first time.

In Defense of a Liberal Education - Fareed Zakaria

  “In Defense of a Liberal Education brilliantly and provocatively argues that the university is much more than a vocational school. The flight from the liberal arts is leaving us impoverished. Zakaria's book couldn't have come at a more valuable moment.” (Malcolm Gladwell)